RMR CT-140 Cataraft review by TBP

[Lee Arbach TBP]

RMR CT-140 Cataraft Three Chambers per Tube, Commercial Grade Construction.

Please note that the Rocky Mountain CT-140 price shown is for TUBES ONLY, not the frame, accessories, or oars, and for now blue and gray are the only two colors.

Rocky Mountain (a.k.a. RMR) catarafts, as mentioned at top, are the only brand of cataraft tube with three chambers standard, and all RMR inflatables are welded, not glued. Although there are many imported pvc cat tubes on the market, most have traditionally been glued together and glue leads to eventual seam failures. Even if the better glued brands hold up for ten to fifteen years, there will still come a day when you have to put a large quantity of pvc in a landfill. Rocky Mountain is currently the only import pontoon with welded seams, bulkheads, & D-rings. Although the Maxxon tubes found in this section of our site cost even less than the RMR’s, Maxxons are a glued product with two main air chambers per side like most brands, whereas the Rocky tubes have three chambers per tube.

In addition to the main seam overlaps, RMR also welds seam tape over both the interior and exterior side of each tube joint. This is something that a few pvc boat manufacturers don’t seem to bother with, yet the lack of seam tape quite often means their inflatables have air retention that is less than stellar, especially as those boats age. Not so with RMR – the extra step of adding seam tape to the interior prevents air wicking along the exterior edges, and the outside seam tape makes it even more reliable.

RMR cat tubes have their underside section formed with a panel of extra heavy 64 ounce/yard material, rather than incorporating a weight-adding secondary chafer. Which means that the only thing not welded on the 2013 Rocky’s is the frame chafers. These tubes have almost no curvature along the top surface (which means there is still 22″ of rocker on this size). The flat top allows you to use longer frames if you wish, and less bending on the bottom means a faster boat. For now, the photo above only looks good in thumbnail size. We will re-post a clearer image as soon as we can.

Individual pieces of the Rocky Mountain cats are not cut out one at a time with hand-traced cookie cutter patterns and scissors. Instead they are sliced out en masse with computer controlled band cutters like the AIREs, and by foregoing much of the usual hand labor the cost to produce each cat tube goes down. We are glad to see someone has taken the reigns to provide an extremely economical alternative to the many glued pvc inflatables out there.

RM cats have eight stainless D-rings per tube, and for 2013 these D-ring patches have a larger contact area with the tube, and a bigger area of stitching over the nylon webbing that holds the metal “D”. The base fabric inside the 33 ounce pvc is a very strong 2000 denier polyester that inflates quite stiff for high performance.

RMR uses the low profile Leafield C-7 valves for all cats and rafts. Warranties on all RMR boats are five years. Rocky Mountain 14′ cat tubes are 22′ in diameter.

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